Nebuchadnezzar

Dyson was now on a roll. Success followed success with every new work during this incredibly fertile time. With the enthusiastic reception of St Paul's Voyage to Melita at Hereford, it is hardly surprising that Worcester wanted to have its own composition from him for their festival in 1935. This was Nebuchadnezzar, an epic work based on the story of the three Jews and the burning fiery furnace. Dyson turned to the third chapter of the Book of Daniel for the principal part of his libretto. He set the revised version of this chapter complete and uncut except for its last sentence, in which it was reported that King Nebuchadnezzar promoted Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego who had inspired his conversion. As a doxology movement Dyson chose to end the work with a setting of the Benedicite, a section of the Song of the Three Holy Children which, in some versions of the Bible, appears after the third chapter of Daniel. The texts are thus linked, and this is another example of Dyson's thoroughness of research in his choosing of words. The only change in this text he made came at the end where the original reads: ‘O Ananias, Azarius, and Misael, bless ye the Lord’. Dyson naturally alters this to: ‘O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, bless ye the Lord’.